


Reel to Reel

by ladygrange



Category: Led Zeppelin
Genre: F/M, Meaning, and eve sedgwick wrote in a dialogue of love, and interacts w/ the magnetic field which imprints sound waves onto the tape itself, belonging to the thing itself, between these holding relations:, but in old french it was spelled reel, in its roots, in reel to reel recording, real comes from medieval latin, reel comes from old english and refers to a reel for winding thread, the left tape reel is laced through a transducer, the right reel then spools this tape, your ability to hold me inside you and mine to hold you inside me”, “there’s some circuit of reciprocity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:14:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24181156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladygrange/pseuds/ladygrange
Relationships: Jimmy Page/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 19





	1. Pangbourne

Gardenias, strung together in lei, in full and fragrant bloom, hang from the bedposts. From the doorknob, too. Sunlight strengthens the fragrance, and a light breeze from the window soothes her skin. White blooms will soon give way to golden, then brown. 

“I’m surprised they lasted,” she murmurs.

She’s between his spread legs, her thighs curve over and above his, her head rests between his ankles. Jimmy sits against the headboard; he’s combed her hair out of the way, in a long fan above her head, for it to curl as it dries. She is open to him in every way. 

Bathwater is almost dried from their hair. Fresh sheets surround them. 

“I know,” he says with a smile down at her. “They gave us so many at the airport, and I thought you’d like them.”

In her periphery, clothes tumble from his suitcase, and resting on top, his fisherman’s hat sports a bloom of gardenia tucked into the band. 

She returns his slow gaze. “Thank you.”

His smile splits the darkness of his beard and draws crinkles at the edges of his eyes. Makes his cheeks brim. His palms sit on fleshy parts of her thighs, easily kneaded in his big hands. Pale in places only he can see. Faint lines still sit in her skin from her underwear elastic. Jimmy rubs those gently.

From the record player’s speakers, music swells and she turns her cheek to the covers, chest full and eyes closed. She breathes deep to capture it inside. Jimmy notices.

“He wrote it for his wife.”

Her lips curl. “Really?”

“Mmm.” Jimmy makes languid tracings on her inner thigh. “He loved her very much.”

She presses a kiss on his ankle bone. His toes curl in. “Is that so?”

“Yes.” His fingers glide near the crease of her sex. “He did.”

“What was her name?”

“Alma,” Jimmy says. “Apparently Mahler left her a poem in the score, called her his sunbeam.”

She smiles and breathes a laugh from deep in her chest. Some content and easy sound which curls between them. Jimmy cups between her legs with a warm palm. 

“Emmaline."

The way he says it, shaped in his mouth, something wonderfully formed, puts a pang of want down to her fingertips. Her eyelids peel open.

“Yes.”

His eyes crease.

“Don’t fall asleep yet.”

She shakes her head lazily. 

“I won’t."

Jimmy runs his hands to the tops of her thighs then slides to her knees, down to her shins, taking an account of skin and bone and the faintest bruise from where she’d hit her leg last week. 

Then up again. 

He knows better than to venture to her feet, their sides unbearably ticklish. 

And back down again.

Some even rhythm exists here. 

She thinks of before, at Heathrow, his neck stacked with lei. Blooms caught pale in his dark hair. How tradition guides the disposal of the leis; throwing them away is a sacred thing which involves hanging them on trees, burying, or burning. For the dead, they are scattered in the ocean. But always, always a return to the earth. 

Jimmy had told her this half enthusiastic and half solemn, with cheeks slightly burnished. Looking at her as he does now, with alert eyes. Ready to say something. She raises her brows in silent questioning. 

“I was thinking,” he says, drawing circles on her skin. 

“What were you thinking?”

A pause. Jimmy continues making the circles. She rolls one of her legs under his hand.

“Go on. Tell me.”

Jimmy scrunches his lips and nose, like he’s bitten into the wrong word. But then he meets her gaze, and it softens. 

“Do you remember when we first met?”

She breathes a laugh and nods. “I do, yeah.”


	2. London

Another box of heavy, unidentifiable equipment slides into her side, and she’s forced into an uncomfortable squat that puts pins and needles in both feet. But she is determined not to make a sound until they’re well past halfway to London. Else Glyn will surely turn around. It’s a victory just to be hidden in the back of this rusty mover’s van, crowded between machinery while her brothers chat up front, none the wiser. 

And anyway, summer has been a massive bore; she wants distance between herself and the house. Above all, she wants something else. Variation. Doesn’t quite know what.

She grins to herself, until Glyn makes a sharp turn and she is further crushed, her balance almost gone. Still, as she rights herself quietly as she can, she tries to follow their conversation.

“…think they’ll show?” Andy asks from the passenger seat. 

They’d been discussing a new sound. Something called stereophonic. The constant rattle and clink surrounding her makes it hard to hear. 

“Chris said so.” Glyn doesn’t sound concerned, with only one hand on the wheel. “They’ve finished the tour but apparently their guitarist is ill.”

“They’ll have a hard time replacing little Jim,” Andy says, between pulls of his cigarette.

She peeks above the edge of a box to see him pass a new cigarette to Glyn. Their ties are loosened at the neck, hair windblown from the open window. 

“Gonna try and get him on at IBC, for sessions,” Glyn says. “It’s good bread.”

“How ill is he?” 

Andy fiddles with the radio dial. Static, less faint static, the BBC, and a groan from the both of them. She strains forward to hear better.

“Dunno,” Glyn flicks the cigarette out the window. “But even if they don’t make it, you’ve got to hear the sound of the new tape.”

His excitement is clear in his voice; she knows this from dinner and every time she’d ever tried to tag along. Andy forgets the radio. She straightens cautiously, only to flinch. Her hair is caught in something. A stand of sorts, folded at a joint, microphone probably.

“They’re really getting rid of the quarter inch tape?” Andy asks. 

“It’s all for the vinyl business,” Glyn says. 

Vinyl, the type of platter sized records he’d brought home occasionally. After excessive pressing on her part, he’d explained how they’re made. And even better, he’d let her keep one. Not that she had a proper player of her own.

“Can’t believe it,” Andy says. “No more quarter inch tape…”

“What does a quarter inch of tape mean?” she asks, hair free and unable to keep quiet. 

“ _Christ-_ ” Andy whips around with huge eyes. “Emma?”

“Emma!” Glyn says sharply from the wheel, glancing at her in the mirror “What are you doing back there?”

“I was just curious.” She sounds too defensive and raises her chin defiantly. 

Andy jumps in, “Have you been there since we left the house?”

“Yes,” she answers quickly. “Glyn, what’s quarter inch tape mean?”

He sighs heavily. “It’s the width of the tape, Em.”

“What tape?”

“The tape in the reel. It picks up sound.”

“How does it?” she asks. “And what’s a reel?”

“It's a bit hard to explain, Em.”

“But I was just–”

“You were just being a sneak, hiding back there,” Andy accuses.

“I’m not a sneak.”

“Leave her alone, Andy,” Glyn says, smacking him on the back of the head. “Emma, are you going to explain yourself?”

Time and luck were on her side. Mum and Dad had gone out to visit a friend. Aunt June was otherwise occupied. The cats were lazy and wouldn’t notice much of anything except a house fire. She scoots closer to Glyn’s seat, tries not to sound wheedling. 

“Aunt June either naps or sends me out to the chippy,” Emma says, just thinking about staying in the house any longer makes her sound a tad desperate. “I don’t want to do any of that, Glyn. _And_ you’d promised, remember? To take me to the studio one Sunday. You said those are the days when the A and R men aren’t around and it’s fine to go for a visit.” 

She takes a breath, hesitates, and adds matter-of-factly, “It’s Sunday.”

“Fine, fine,” he eyes her again in the mirror but she holds her own. “But Em, you’d best stay out of the way, understand?”

The outside of the International Broadcasting Corporation doesn’t look impressive—the same black, wrought iron fence guards it just like everywhere else in London. A few young men huddle outside, smoking and talking, dressed in jackets and loose ties. Waiting for the van, apparently. She’s tasked with two heavy bundles of electrical cord, one on each shoulder. 

Glyn points her to the double doors. “Emma, go put those down and call Mum, tell her you’re with us and safe.”

“But she’s out.”

He looks stern. Like Dad. “Do it anyway.”

The inside is big, as big, maybe bigger, than an auditorium, and with a grownup air. No shenanigans. Wood and glass partitions section off the room, surround a drum set. Microphones angle everywhere, and amplifiers sit, stacked, some with gaping holes in their fronts. She makes a slow turn.

“Are you looking for something in particular?”

A soft voice jerks her back, one bundle slides off her aching shoulder. The man addressing her with raised brows has a sleek black guitar in his lap and sits on one of the many tall stools. His legs are crossed, cowboy boots peek from under the hems of his trousers. 

“I, uh…”

“ _Emma_.” Andy comes up behind her to take the cables off her shoulders. “Go back there and use the phone, like Glyn told you to. Sorry if she bothered you, Jimmy.”

She flushes and gives Andy a pointed stare.

“No trouble,” Jimmy says and returns to his playing.

Back there is a smaller room, but full of novelty––machines and equipment, and spinny chairs tucked into a large table with rows and rows of knobs. The special seats. 

She chews the inside of her cheek, wanting badly to be up there, to see what can be seen.

But Andy puts the receiver into her hand and she’s got to try the number twice before Aunt June answers. Emma rushes through her explanation, not that it matters. A promise to be back for dinner is all that's required. 

“What’d she say?” Andy asks, standing next to a machine that resembles the dashboard of the car. He fits reels on them with a few deft moves.

“Wasn’t Mum,” she says, eyes glued to the little meters at the bottom of the machine. The many buttons above. Andy feeds shiny black tape under and over knobs. “What’s this called?”

“Four track reel to reel.” He shoos her away. “Go and sit over by Glyn and don’t touch anything.”

She has no objections. Beside Glyn, in a cushioned spinny chair, she peruses the hundreds of knobs and numbers and looks out the glass to where the others mill about. Maybe her feet don’t _quite_ touch the carpet, and maybe she isn’t supposed to be here. But she clutches that thrilled, determined feeling in her fist, as if she’s clued into some big secret. Some sort of knowledge. She wants to know more. To know all of it. 

“What’s this?” she asks.

Glyn doesn’t even look up from a stack of paperwork. “It’s the desk.”

“Doesn’t look like one,” she says skeptically. And then, pointing to the side, at Andy, “Those are the reels?”

“Mm.”

She turns to the side, where the reels spin counter clockwise, music plays, stops. Clockwise. One reel gets smaller while the other gets larger. And still, Andy handles it like he’s barely paying attention, like he’d know every button and switch blindfolded. 

She swivels to face Glyn. He looks similarly familiar with the desk, an even more intimidating piece of furniture. She itches to be involved and has to sit on her hands to prevent herself from skimming her fingers over the ridges and buttons. That would only lead to a stern rebuke. 

But Glyn isn’t paying attention to her, a few others have come to chat, and she rolls gingerly to the end of the desk. 

That black guitar rests on the furthest corner of the desk. Its owner is nowhere in sight. Behind her, more chatter,

“He’s going to art school,” a disappointed voice informs Glyn. “In Sutton, in about a week.”

“Well, fuck…” Glyn says. “And the group? Neil Christian?”

More chatter, shuffling in and out. She chants to herself not to touch anything. When she gets the chance, she taps Glyn.

“What are those?” She points out the set of three shining, silver rectangles set into the body of the guitar. 

Glyn looks quickly. “Humbuckers.”

She nibbles her lip. “Yes, but what do they _do_?”

“They buck the hum, Emma,” he says this in an annoyed way. 

She bites her tongue so as to not call him a prat.

“Are they going to play?” she asks, nodding towards the glass.

“Nah, they’ve done that last week. We’re giving them the tapes.”

“What tapes?”

Glyn sighs and swivels to face her. “Remember when I told you about how tape picks up sound? They’ve picked it up and we’re handing it off now. We’re not staying here long, Emma.”

His words fall in that place in her belly that means disappointment. She looks down to see the filthy tops of her shoes. She’ll need to clean them off before Mum sees her again, _and_ have an apology ready. So much to do, and there won’t be any playing. She looks back to Glyn, deflated.

“Are there toilets down here?”

He doesn’t look at her. “Down the hall on your left.”

Most of the dirt comes off with some scrubbing, but there’s a scuff on the left toe that’s stubborn. Even the soap doesn’t help and she’s tired of standing on her tippy toes to reach everything. The counter doesn’t suit her height. 

Her apology comes rushed and her cheeks flame when she opens the door and runs into someone

“Sorry, I’m sorry.”

That same man, Jim, or Jimmy, she doesn’t know which he prefers, waves it off like she’d done nothing wrong. He looks terribly pale, and a bit clammy.

“It’s all right.”

“Have you been ill?” she blurts out, instantly cursing her wayward mouth.

That brings a smile to his face. 

“Yeah, but I’ll be fine.” He glances at her with a hint of curiosity. “Are you working here?”

“No, I came with my brothers,” she says. Then, boldly and maybe foolishly, “But I’d like to someday. Dunno much right now.”

Jimmy considers her words. “It’s easy once you get the feel for it. Well, maybe not easy. But good. Good to do what you like.”

She quashes the urge to tell him he looks in need of a doctor and the dueling urge to ask him all her questions. She also wants to get out of this standing in the hallway business, before Andy or Glyn accuse her of being underfoot. 

But then…

Standing before her, Jimmy doesn’t look peeved. He doesn’t seem to mind that she nibbles her lip or that her eyes dart to where the hall leads to the desk or that she hasn’t responded to his comment. 

It’s an odd relief, that patience. He extends his hand.

“I’m Jimmy, and you’re Emma, yes?”

“Yes, Emma,” she says. His hand swallows hers, strength in his grip. “Mum is the only one who calls me Emmaline, but only some of the time.”

“Emmaline, then,” he says. He drops her hand. A corner of his mouth turns up. “But only some of the time.”

She nods, holding back a grin, half embarrassed, slightly flustered to hear him say it fully. 

“Only some of the time.”

Jimmy looks away at his name, someone calling him. He turns back as he walks.

“It was good to meet you.”

She nods, one arm crossed over her chest. “You too.”


	3. Pangbourne

“I didn’t see you for a long time after that.”

She hums a laugh. “I’m surprised you remember.”

“Emmaline,” Jimmy looks baffled and gives her calf in a firm jostle. “Fuck's sake, of course I do.”

He does. They both do. She’d been on at IBC for Beck––her first full on rock session and _still_ Glyn had nagged her about microphone placement in the car ride, and the importance of not being in the way. 

And there he’d been. Hair much longer, fully recovered from illness and out of art college. He’d talked with his hands then, too. Now, hair even longer, hairy cheeked and soft under the eyes, she observes how speech leaks through to his hands. She watches them with a little smile. Thinks there are so many ways of speaking. Of telling her what’s on his mind. 

“And soon you got yourself a train timetable as well, no more hitching a ride.”

She grins and wiggles her toes at the sensitive bend of his waist. “Yes, and you got out of stuffy sessions, didn’t you?”

Jimmy snags the offending foot with an answering smile. “You learned what humbuckers are, too.”

“Mm, they buck the hum.”

That earns her crinkles. Jimmy props her ankle on his shoulder to rest his cheek on her calf; he rubs in, settles with his eyes closed for a brief moment. Deep breath. His cheek squishes to his eye and one hand keeps hold. Her toes are lost in his hair.

His beard is dense and scratchy soft on her skin. 

His gaze goes down her outstretched leg, following his wandering fingers. Contemplative.

“You know, back then, I’d go back through the cone of the speaker into a world of my own,” he says, fingers swirling down the curve of her calf, under the hollow of her knee. “I’d pretend that I was sitting in the studio with the artists and engineers and we’d study the echo and how the music was created.” 

Jimmy pulls back to her with a self-conscious purse to his lips. “Might’ve been deluding myself a bit.”

She nudges his cheek with her foot. “It was a good delusion then.”

Jimmy nuzzles his bearded cheek into her skin and offers a last kiss to her ankle bone before setting her leg down beside his hip. 

“I’m glad you think so.”

“I do,” she says, tender and emphatic. 

Her eyes never leave his, and she takes a quiet record–that active verb. Of holding. And then of being held. 

Jimmy settles into the pillows at his back. For a bit, she runs her palms over his shins, over crisp hair and the beginning ridge of his knee, then back down. 

His eyes grow lidded. That heart thud of a look, right between her legs, vulnerable flesh spread to him. Her tummy clenches involuntarily, and Jimmy puts a hand over her abdomen, fingering downy skin. He’d washed it only a short time ago, been generous with the lather. Now, just as then, he follows the gentle slope of her body to her sex. Now, just as then, her skin blossoms with awareness. 

“You turn more pink here,” Jimmy says softly, “during some parts of the month.”

She raises herself on her elbows with a lopsided smile and raised brows. “Pardon?”

He’s intent upon her, meeting her eyes for only a brief second. “I’ve noticed it for a while.”

“I didn’t,” she fumbles with her words. Jimmy makes a study of the delicate folds of skin. “Didn’t think you’d notice that sort of thing.”

Jimmy hums in a throaty way that puts flutters in her tummy. 

“I notice you,” he says simply. 

He tugs her closer by her thighs, forcing her wider. Bringing her near the rise of his erection.

Right there before her, stiff and nested in black hair, the head of his cock is plump and dusky, jutting to his belly button. The sight has her wet to receive it.

“You get especially dark when I touch you,” Jimmy says, voice a hint rough. “Swollen too.”

She pushes her hips into his touch on instinct, bottom lip between her teeth.

“Are you telling me I blush?”

“Mm, deep red.”

He puts his thumb firmly in the parted seam of her labia and follows it down–down where she’s slippery. Jimmy tears his gaze from between her legs to meet her eyes with a half tilt of a smile. 

“You’re like that right now, my darling.”

She releases a shaky breath. “So are you.” 

“That’s for you,” he murmurs. 

She watches him part her for his fingers; a liquid glide that makes her stiffen, hips tilting up to take him far as his final knuckle. Jimmy spits hurriedly into his other hand and fists his erection, pumping at a measured pace.

“Watch, Emmaline,” he says. 

Clutching his shins, she watches. The _sight_ of it—of him working three fingers inside her body, in and out, almost brings her to her peak. His thumb grazes her clit and his pinky is wedged tight to the curve of her ass. 

Too much. Too soon to come like this, while he watches her struggle and wet his fingers. While he strokes himself. His tip appears and disappears and beads with little pearls each time. She knows the taste of them. Of him. Her head falls to the mattress. 

“Jimmy…” she breaks off in a whimper, eyes squeezed tight because he’s curled his fingers. 

Her clit is so swollen and hard under his thumb. An unbearably sensitive bundle. He doesn’t need to touch it directly, tight circles will do. Round and round. She raises her head on unsteady muscles.

To find his eyes burning. Chest expanding hard and quick. 

Want wells up and washes over. 

“Emma, come here.” Jimmy releases his erection and slides his fingers from her sex. “Come here, darling.”

Big hands take her hips and guide her astride his lap. His tip grazes her teased clitoris. Delicious enough, and then, inch by inch, Jimmy bears her down. 

They’re both in thrall to the penetration, the accepting. The melting of their bellies together when she’s full and flush to his lap. Brought together. In those suspended seconds, Jimmy tongues her mouth open. One hand supports the back of her head, the other glides down her back. 

Openness swells within. She wants him every way, in any way. His mouth open with hers, his cock thick inside her. 

She reaches behind her torso, for his hand, and brings it to her mouth. His palm is warm on her lips, his cock twitches when she takes three fingers into her mouth. 

Jimmy’s eyes flare with knowing. He pulls his saliva coated fingers from her lips.

“All right,” he says. “But you’ve got to relax, Emmaline.”

She nods, gripping his shoulders, dazed with anticipation. His eyes crinkle when she takes a deep breath. 

“Spit,” he orders, laying his fingers flat at her bottom lip.

She does, enough to make her spit web and glide between his long fingers. Enough to ease his way. Jimmy tucks her into his body.

“Breathe,” Jimmy tells her.

She nods against his neck. Her muscles flutter and clamp but she wills herself to loosen. Jimmy grazes puckered and private skin. Sensitivity jolts her. His fingers press and pull at the tight ring of flesh, readying her for the first, then the second. She bites his shoulder when he stops at the rounded part of his knuckle. Stretched and penetrated around him, by him, every nerve aware of it.

She looks down the narrow space, where she is full of his cock, yielding and slippery. Then his flexing belly, tiny peaked nipples the color of a raspberry, to his bright cheeks and darkened eyes. Hair hangs thick around his face. Voice tearful, she says,

“I’m going to come.”

“I know,” Jimmy says tenderly, flexing his fingers inside, against the thin separation between his cock and fingers.

Jimmy digs his heels into the mattress with just enough force to make her cry out. Every muscle tenses for release. Her head rolls on his shoulder, her fingers dig into the flex of his back.

“Emmaline, look at me, darling.”

She does, panting, working her hips in a fervent, tight grind. 

“Do you want another? Another of my fingers?” Jimmy bounces again, sending him deeper, making her gasp. “Hm?”

Her voice wavers with need, “Yes.”

A third, snug and slow. She feels full all the way to her throat. Jimmy rocks his hips on the mattress. To and fro, not quite a thrust but her mind blanks at the pleasure. Jimmy smoothes her hair and cradles her face with his spare hand. She knows she must look close to pained. Trembling.

“Move your hips, my darling.”

She shakes her head, breath hitching and both channels fluttering in warning. He nudges her nose with his.

“Yes.”

Jimmy winds an arm around her waist to keep her steady. She has to order herself to push inward then away, to lift herself and find leverage. Jimmy tosses his head back, exposing his neck and the deep flush there, how it disappears into the thick of his beard, throat working. 

She ruts inward again; rise and fall and rise and fall. Her blood pumps heavy and saturated. With _him_ and the scent of gardenias and the music at a slow swell. Close close close. 

Her cry, the one that signals she’s nearly there, prompts Jimmy to nudge her nose. 

“Sweet girl,” he says in a husky voice, slow red lips. 

She whimpers. Clutches him deep inside.

“You’re stretched aren’t you?”

“I can’t… I can’t…” Her words won’t form right. His fingers flex inside. “Can’t.”

“I know,” he murmurs. “You’re nearly there, my darling.”

Jimmy palms the back of her head and brings her to rest at the crook of his neck, face covered in the good washed darkness of his har. She sobs her orgasm, fingers twisted in his hair, holding him for anchorage. 

Her toes clutch and curl repeatedly, muscles pulling deep at his fingers and cock. Broken open on the pleasure. A helplessness that makes her more vulnerable than she could ever be. Needing it badly yet unable to take more.

Jimmy prolongs that bouncing, rocking, rhythm. He hefts her close so that she sinks further onto his cock, trapping her on his fingers. 

She hugs him tightly, feels every throb of him inside her, the hot wash and fervent groan of his orgasm. 

Her cheeks are salty and wet. She nuzzles closer. Between them, what they’ve done together, a mix of musky sweetness and heat.

And always that rush of blood after sex across their cheeks. Jimmy is especially flushed at his ears––a delicate architecture of whorls and inner bones she nuzzles against. She thinks she hears him, beyond the knock of her pulse, hears him repeat her name because she missed it the first time.

“Emmaline.”

Jimmy nudges her from her hiding place, for her mouth. She opens to the asking of his tongue, his kiss languid and consuming and his beard against her cheeks and chin. Jimmy takes her sharp gasp as he removes his fingers, making soothing noises in the back of his throat. He cradles her bottom with both hands.

“All right?”

She nods with a sleepy, gratified sound. 

Hair has stuck to his temples and neck. She makes a point to smooth it back. Jimmy blinks slowly at her, still half hard inside her, keeping the creamy evidence of his orgasm from leaking out.

She scratches below his chin, producing a faint, raspy sound. Jimmy tilts his head back. A contented sound forms in his throat. She cups his cheeks again and meets his full gaze, and she decorates his brow with kisses. Temples too. Each smiling round of his cheeks because he’s grinning at her now.

“Your eyes,” she murmurs.

“What about them,” he asks, lips moving against the side of her palm.

She traces those gathers and crinkles gently, as if they were ripples on water. 

“When you smile like that, it’s called a Duchenne smile.”

“Duchenne.” Jimmy gazes down at her, cheeks risen and big, eyes still gathered. “Named after someone?”

She nods. “A scientist.”

She puts her thumb at the parenthesis beside his mouth and her forefinger at the smiling sides of his eye. 

“There are these muscles, you see, that bring your cheeks up and make your eyes squint and crease. Can’t remember what they’re called right now.”

“Curious girl,” he murmurs, absently combing his fingers through her hair. “Always wanting to know.”

She stifles her smile, but he brings her out anyway, into a full grin.

His gaze is long and deliberate and searching––he addresses her past speech and movement. 

In the slippage between intention and words, where all that longing lives, urgent and shattering and often in her chest, she understands what his looking at her contains.

He knows her joints and phrases. How she fits together. And the tape picks up. 

She knows him in turn.

**Author's Note:**

> For months now, I’ve wanted to deactivate my AO3 account. Posting sends me into a spiral of doubt and anxiety; it no longer feels like an act of love for my subject or for sharing that love. 
> 
> I pick up stray back-handed comments and the dominant portrayal of JP as something to be reduced to his worse parts like lint to my confidence. I keep getting upset to the point of tears. And I let these things fester, plunge myself further into disappointment. 
> 
> Not a good habit! It’s not at all useful to me, but I feel myself slipping into the same bad patterns I acquired on tumblr. 
> 
> These feelings spill into my writing. The work feels stiff and self-conscious. I post, then turn on the writing and see it only for perceived flaws or places where I feel I’ve slipped. My mind is hunched over itself. I’m preoccupied with things I can’t control and which are better ignored. Before I know it, I’m berating myself for letting an online space crush me. All this to say, I’m having a hard time here and I have been for a while, and I need to take better care of myself. 
> 
> So, I’m not going to deactivate, but this account is now inactive.


End file.
